\ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 

Chap. . Bf^^^H^ I 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




" ^SPO 



Tlje Loyal Womef] of 1861 ^'65/ 



'1 



Response to the last Regular Toast at the Army 

of the Cumberland Banquet, in the Music Hall, 

Cincinnati, October 25, 1883, 



tt^' 



GENERAL R!' D 




Mr 



Chairman and Comrades: 

I am embarrassed by this Toast. Shall the re- 
sponse be as if the speaker were the representative of the 
Army of the Cumberland telling what we think of the Loyal 
Women who during the Rebellion added Jewels to the crown 
of Womanhood ? Or shall the speaker give voice to their 
appreciation of your thanks, your gratitude, your honor, 
your devotion and your love ? Which shall it be ? 

In ignorance of your intention let me construe the toast 
for myself and put my own interpretation on your desires. 
Let me, so far as I may, unite the two and say what, on this 
occasion and after these years, seems fittest to express the 
memory we have of the Loyal Women of 1861 and the 
largess of the love they gave us. 

The War of the Rebellion was not a mere incident in our 






Nation's life ; it was an epoch in History. Not only did it 
" preserve us a Nation " but it enlarged the horizon of hu- 
manity. Specially is this true as to those who took part in 
it. No man that bore a musket — no man that wore a sword 
— no man that sighted a gnu — no man that unfurled a sail 
— in that War, but became a broader, fuller, larger, riper 
man. The area of his life was magnified by the grandeur 
of the struggle in which ho Was engaged. The vastness of 
its proportions ennobled him. " His spirit grew with its 
allotted place." No change of time or circumstance can 
ever reduce him to his former self. His growth may be ar- 
rested and the promise of further increase bear no fruit. 
But still a positive, ayjpreciable, and irreversible progress 
has been made. So it is with us who survive; and we can- 
not doubt that they, whom shell and shot and disease took 
from our ranks, entered the spiritual world with capacity for 
more extended vision than they possessed when the war 
began. 

Now, Mr. Chairman and Comrades, this effect was not 
confined to the Men who were loyal from 1861 to 1865 : it 
extended to those whom you have toasted — the Loyal 
Women of The War — enlarged their horizon; gave them 
new perceptions of duty; new views of life; new ideas of 
countr3^ It opened new avenues of activity; new fields of 
for study: new resources of livelihood ; and new opportu- 
nities for achievement. A nobler manhood and a fairer 
womanhood are possible to day — nay, exist and surround 
us by reason of that AVar ! Am I not right in saying that 
the War emancipated Man and Woman — without distinc- 
tion of race, color, or previous condition — fitting them to 
possess a new World and cultivate it? It is not neces- 
sary to enumerate these changes as they affect Woman. 
Here in this Queen City of the West, whose ver}^ name at- 
tests womanly supremacy, every step shows what Woman 
has dared and what Woman has done since the War. Even 
yonder organ is as beautiful without as it is strong voiced 
and melodious within because of the touch of woman's 



band.* In Art, in Literature, in the Professions, in Busi- 
ness, there are to-day thousands of women honored, honor- 
able and useful, who but for the War would never have been 
there. 

The War taught us that neither Man alone nor Woman 
alone can hope for the highest success. Womanly wit must 
aid Manly wisdom ; Manly eftbrt must execute Womanly 
instinct, and Womanl}- grace must crown Manly strength, 
before the perfect deed is done. Just in proportion as the 
two great elemental forces of the Universe, that find their 
representation respectively in Man and Woman, are united 
in harmonious cooperation — just in that proportion is the 
waste of Nature made habitable and populated. 

So much, as their representative have I said for the Loyal 
Women in acknowledgment of the effects of the War which 
we fought. 

But, who can speak our debt to them? 

The Loyal Women at home whom we left ! Whose hope 
was always bright ! Whose faith never faltered ! Whose 
charity never failed ! Whose self-sacrifice never ceased ! 
Whose love knew no abatement! How their handiwork 
cheered us I How their counsel restrained us ! How their 
courage strengthened us ! How their prayers aided us ! 
How their affection rewarded us I 

Every message of love they sent us was sanctified by the 
spirit of that grand couplet — 

" I could not love the dear so much 
Loved I not honor more." 

The Loyal Women, too, from home, who went with us! 
Whose gentle patience soothed the pain of wounds, minis- 
tered to the fevered fancy of disease, and sustained the pil- 
low of the dying! Well might that poor boy in Hospital 
say in homely but expressive phrase to one fortunately still 



* The case of the Organ in the Music Hall, v^here the Banquet was held, is 

ornamented with carving by Ladies of Cincinnati. 



spared to us — " Miss you are the God blessedest woman 
I ever saw !" 

The Lo3'al Women, too, whom we met down there ! When 
the real history of the War is written — if it ever is — the 
world will know its indebtedness to them. Our President, 
(Gen'l Sheridan) could tell what sure knowledge of his 
opponents " in the Valley" he got from that little lady whom 
we know in Washington. General Grant could tell how 
he tightened his grip upon the throat of Richmond because 
of the information sent him by the lady whom a later Presi- 
dent turned out of the Post OfRce which he had secured for 
her. 

There is not one of you that commanded Armies, Corps, 
Divisions, Brigades or Regiments — that would not have his 
contribution to make to the Story of Loyal Women at the 
South giving him the material of facts upon which to plan 
and execute movements and avert surprises. There isn't one 
of us, Comrades, but has some reminiscence of help or en- 
couragement from these Loyal Women of the South. Per- 
haps there are some here to-night beside myself, who can 
remember how we were thrilled by the sight of those pa- 
triotic Women who walked ten miles across the Cumberland 
Mountains into Dunlap just to see the '* Old Flag" once 
more. Just to see it, mind you! They were not begging 
for rations nor seeking passes. 

LTntil Heroism becomes a lost Art, and Patriotism is for- 
got, Barbara Fretchie shall wave her flag and conquer 
Stonewall Jackson and his Corps ! What is called " his- 
torical criticism" is trying to prove it all away. If it suc- 
ceed in robbing our brothers of the Eastern Armies of that 
precious and poetic memory of their campaigns, it cannot 
deprive us, of the Army of the Cumberland, of Mrs. Hetty 
McEwEN of Nashville, who nailed the Flag to the roof that 
covered the head of her dying Son — though the whole City 
was in arms against it — quietly saying — 

"My Son was born under that Flag, and he shall die un- 
der it." And he did ! 



5 

Then there were other Loyal Women that we met there. 
Black, brown, and colored — many of them uncouth of 
feature; devoid of grace; ignorant and humble. Yet who 
of you that fled from Salisbury, or Andersonville, or Libby, 
but blessed God when he saw one then, and shared her 
" pone," was hid by her in tlie bushes, or guided by her 
through trackless swamps, and over barren mountains on 
his way to Freedom ! We should be recreant if, under this 
toast, we did not gratefully pledge their memory ! 

Mr. Chairman, your Toast embarrasses me. It is too 
broad and too narrow. 

Too broad, for it demands more than can be rendered to 
do justice to the Loyal Women from 1861 to 1865. It was 
too much to ask rae last year to speak for the two and three- 
fourths millions of men who carried the Flag from 1861 to 
1865. But to-night you ask me to speak for those who 
followed its every move as it went from the Ohio and the 
Potomac to the Gulf, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic — 
with earnest tears and prayers with hope and fear, with joy 
and grief! Three times their number who carried it were 
they, for each man that went left behind a mother, a sister, 
and a wife or a sweetheart among the Loyal Women of the 
North. 

Your Toast is too narrow, for it makes no mention of those 
Loyal Women of 1831 to 1835 and 1841 to 1845 without 
whom there would have been no Loyal Men in 1861 and 
1865. Certainly, we and the Country, have reason to be 
grateful to them that they were wise enough to have the 
right sort of sons ready when they were needed ! Your 
toast is too narrow now 

— " that noble thought is freer under the sun 
And the heart of the people beats with one desire," — 

that it does not permit me to speak of the devotion, the sac- 
rifice, the courage, the perseverance, the energy shown by 
those Women who were loyal to the other side. Their hori- 
zon was enlarged too. They who suffered defeat in 1865 



6 

• 

are now, in 1883, with a zeal to wliich I bear tribute of 
fullest praise, seeking to repair their losses, and are busy 
rehabilitating the Southern States, not as independent Sov- 
ereignties, but as integral portions of the Union in which 
they and their antagonists of twenty years ago are to-day 
American Women. The great Present born of the Splendid 
Past presages a greater Future. A "more perfect Union" 
is assured for the American Man and the American Woman. 

The American Woman is no doll, no plaything. She is 
a help meet for the American Man. 

Wandering sometimes through the Halls of Statuary, in 
the Corcoran Gallery, I look at the attempts made by Sculp- 
tors, ancient and modern, to embody their ideals of Woman. 

Their Dianas, their Aprodites, their Minervas do not 
satisfy me. I turn from them to a Statue, battered and 
bruised and mutilated as by War, and in the so-called Venus 
of Milo I see a nearer fulhllment of what the American 
Woman is and shall be. 

She is no mere 

— "lovely apparition sent 
To be a moment's ornament;" — 



but, 



"A perfect woman nobly planned 
To Warn, to Comfort and Command.' 



She is the daughter of a Patriot, the Sister of a Hero, the 
Wife of a Sovereign, and the Mother of the American citi- 
zen. 

Happy, thrice happy he who can clasp her hand and say 

" My bride 
My wife, my life I (>, we will walk this world 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows." 



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